掲示板 Forums - What is the point of Kanji?

​First: congratulations! There are people who start all fired up, then throw up their hands and quit before going through all the hiragana. You got this.

Second: kanji do make sense. With absolutely zero intention to sound patronising (and many apologies if I do), the more Japanese you learn, the more "a-ha!" moments you have and the more you realise they're a huge part of how the language works. ポールおじちゃん's example says it better than a thousand words* (and made me laugh inexplicably in a busy bus stop). Even if Japanese was to start using spaces to separate words... you read しょう, for example: is it "chapter"? Is it "small [something]"? Is it "award"? Is it "ministry of [something]"? Is it "ruler", like 将軍? "Merchandise"? "Illness"? Not to mention the wealth of nuances and extra meanings they bring.

*in which case, why am I writing this? Honestly, because I've grown to love kanji. Yes, it can happen. In fact, it probably will if you continue.

​Oh, I can assure you just from what little I've heard from others, you are definitely not learning Chinese. That would involve so much extra stuff that learning the most usual kanji would seem like a walk in the park. (OK, a huge park.)

I promise: kanji get so interesting as you get to know them, you won't believe you ever thought "why do I have to learn even more?" Why is Japanese so complicated? Why is English / Uzbek / Serbian?

Addressing one's frustration is super important in learning! What you're doing is a good thing - trying to get to the bottom of things like this will (I feel) help you appreciate them more in the long run.

A few things (partially covered by others)

1. Kanji comes largely from Chinese, but it is not Chinese, just as borrowed linguistic elements in almost any language cease to be the original language, and become fully integrated in whatever they are used in. It does FEEL like there is a huge block of Chinese dropped in, though.

2. Information density in kanji is ridiculously high. This helps you get more information across faster (with the exception of handwriting). You need, compared to most languages, less space to get across a certain amount of information, and less time for a person to take in that information. This is a rather modern example, and I unfortunately do not have the link as it was years ago, but some research was done on density and length of messages on Twitter/X between Japanese and ...I think it was English. It was supposed (or perhaps outright stated) that when they increase the length of tweets a number of years ago, Japanese did not (initially?) follow suit because they could already get a ton of meaning across in 140 characters.

3. This is not a "why kanji", but an appeal to you as a learner. Kanji is like a complex machine that looks impossible to approach initially. On top of that, it seems to have a million different functions (characters).

The crazy thing about kanji, though, is it acts as an accelerator of sorts. Once you learn a certain number of kanji, it helps you absorb new Japanese much faster, INCLUDING kanji. You might not believe it at first, but there are only so many parts that come together to make all the kanji we know and use. Once you get those down, new kanji do not look like (for example) a mess of 18 isolated strokes. Instead, you see "oh, it's these 3 pieces". On top of that, you may get, without any external info, hints about the reading and the meaning from entirely new kanji.

Hey, don't lose courage! They're not hard, they're just not easy. (Few things are, beyond primary school subjects, if you think about it.) They developed out of the interactions of human beings like us, so they make sense. The more we learn about them, the more we understand their particular kimd of sense and see the beauty in it.

Good luck with the kana, write if you need help. There are several threads in the forums about ways to make them stick, try looking up "hiragana" or "katakana" with the forum search function. You can do this, no need to stress. I don't know if you're learning Japanese because of outside circumstances or by personal choice, but it can be really fun! Glad you're joining us on this trip.

All reasons are good reasons, I think. And thanks for sharing!

Re: Herculean task: what helps me is to try not to look ahead much, only as far as the day/week's learning objectives, and notice every tiny bit of progress, even if it's "this time I only got this kanji reading wrong four times before getting it right once". Also, lurking on Renshuu's Discord server is often encouraging – seeing others who struggle with similar (or much more complicated) problems helps put things into perspective.